National Post credits watchdog Chris Budgell with breaking new story about Canadian Judicial Council’s own conflict of interest over Justice Newbould

One of Canada’s best known journalists credits independent CJC watchdog Chris Budgell with breaking a story about the personal conflicts of interest of a member of the Canadian Judicial Council committee investigating Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Newbould.

Christie Blatchford wrote in the National Post “The first to notice these (conflict of interest) connections was Chris Budgell, a self-appointed citizen watchdog of the judicial council.”

A lawyer hand-picked by federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to serve on the committee probing the conduct of Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Newbould hails from a Vancouver law firm with long-standing connections to the organization that complained about the judge.

On March 31, Wilson-Raybould announced that Clarine (Clo) Ostrove, a partner at Mandell Pinder, a Vancouver firm that focuses exclusively on First Nation work, is her designate on the three-person inquiry. (snip)

One of Ostrove’s associates at Mandell Pinder, Stephen Mussel, is a member of the Indigenous Bar Association.

A former Mandell Pinder associate, and former Chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation in Nanaimo, B.C., Douglas S. White, was also an Indigenous Bar Association director.

Another of the firm’s former lawyers, Angela Cousins, was a board member of the association.

Most, including Ostrove herself, have spoken on Aboriginal law issues at various conferences, including two where either Wilson-Raybould, a lawyer, former prosecutor and former regional Chief of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations before her election as MP for Vancouver Grenville, or her husband, Tim Raybould, were also speakers.

Budgell did the digging and sent Blatchford a well researched article that provided the foundation for her National Post story. Budgell also sent the article to DonaldBest.CA as we were prepared to publish if the National Post ignored Budgell’s work.

Christie Blatchford’s excellent article contains much more about the conflicts of interest – including that both federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and the president of the Association of Superior Court Judges, Justice Susan G. Himel, are weighing in on the situation in what some are saying appear to be attempts to influence the Canadian Judicial Council and the Inquiry Panel convened into Justice Newbould’s conduct.

National Post still censors news about CJC and Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy

Lawyer Peter Wardle – Justice Shaughnessy

Blatchford’s employer though, the National Post, still refuses to cover stories about the ongoing Judicial Review of the Canadian Judicial Council’s handling of a misconduct complaint against Justice J. Bryan Shaughnessy, including:

A Federal Court refused to dismiss Shaughnessy’s application to remove his name as a party to the judicial review.

The unprecedented January 17, 2017 Federal Court decision also ordered Justice Shaughnessy to personally pay the legal costs of Donald Best, a self-represented litigant that the Ontario Superior Court Justice sent to prison for contempt of court.

No other judge in Canadian history has been ordered to pay legal costs.

Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General had been acting as the judge’s personal lawyer for almost a year but parted ways with Justice Shaughnessy a week after DonaldBest.CA published an article describing how, with the AGO acting as the judge’s personal attorney, nobody was acting for the public interest at the Judicial Review.

Justice Shaughnessy’s new lawyer Peter C. Wardle has multiple conflicts of interest. In a closely related matter, Wardle represented two lawyers who are almost certain to be called as witnesses in a CJC investigation or public inquiry into misconduct allegations against Justice Shaughnessy.

Questions are also being asked about the propriety of Wardle, a Law Society of Upper Canada senior bencher, representing a Federally appointed judge accused of serious, premeditated misconduct.

Justice Shaughnessy’s latest choice of lawyer only ramps up questions about conflicts of interest and the optics of the apparent relationships between big law firms, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, and the Attorney General of Canada – when nobody is representing the public interest during the judicial review.

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Judge Newbould is no longer a judge. Misconduct proceedings are stayed
The Canadian Judicial Council has permanently stayed its proceedings examining the conduct of Justice Frank Newbould. Newbould has been retired since June 1 and is no longer a judge

A Canadian Judicial Council inquiry to determine whether Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Newbould should be removed from office has been permanently stayed.

The judicial council said today that Judge Newbould retired effective June 1 and is no longer a judge.

The council said it has no jurisdiction to review the conduct of retired judges and continuing the misconduct proceedings against the 73-year-old Newbould wouldn’t be in the public interest.

Newbould has presided over Essar Steel Algoma’s restructuring proceedings under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act since the steelmaker first sought protection from its creditors in November, 2015.

As SooToday reported in February and April of this year, the public inquiry into Newbould’s conduct had nothing to do with the Essar Steel Algoma case.

Instead, it was to examine an unrelated matter involving a land claim at Sauble Beach, where Newbould has a cottage.

“If proven, the allegations surrounding the intervention of Justice Newbould in the context of a court case, could be so serious that they may warrant the judge’s removal from office,” the judicial council said in February.

“The inquiry committee has confirmed that as of June 1, 2017, the Honourable Frank Newbould has retired and is no longer a judge,” the committee said in its just-released report to the judicial council.

“Thus, whether the issue is framed as one of jurisdiction or one of mootness, this inquiry committee finds there would be no public interest benefit in proceeding with this inquiry.”

So far, there’s no indication who will assume Judge Newbould’s duties in the Essar Steel Algoma insolvency proceedings.

Newbould was appointed to Ontario’s Superior Court in 2006.

A past president of the Lawyers’ Club of Toronto, he sat in the Commercial List in Toronto, hearing some of Canada’s largest and most complex insolvency restructuring cases.

He was called to the bar in 1969 and practiced law in Toronto with Tilley Carson & Findlay until 1988, then with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP.

Newbould was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1981.

Before his appointment as a judge, he was a director of Pacific & Western Bank of Canada and Cuddy International Inc.